Basically, the book is inhuman. It treats children like some species of wild animal. It treats parents like they have to be trained not to love their children. Horrid. I had to be stroking his hair, with a lamp on and the door left open, and the baby needed perpetual motion to nod off. Having noted that I was reading the book, my respected friends-with-kids were unanimous in their hatred of the "Queen of routine". I didn't get such a strong reaction myself, but I expect I'm more likely to once the kid arrives - though I will say Ford has an unfortunate tendency towards smugness which is not going to help in winning over her critics. And Gina Ford’s routine, which is segmented into reassuring week by week, hour by hour instruction, taught us all how.

Whether you are expecting your first child, or are experiencing difficulties with an older baby, this comprehensive guide contains all the expert guidance you need to help your baby feed and sleep well. Read more Details As for me, after I nailed that sleeping-through-the-night thing at six months (a little later than she said it would happen, but hey ho) I was pregnant again, and then again, and then again and then again.Six boys in the space of nine years, with different personalities, needs, bodies, temperaments, all squeezed into one basement room. I found that the early feeding schedules in this book were not able to satisfy our baby, and so I breastfed more on-demand (my doc's rec) for the first 6 months, instead of implementing Gina Ford's schedules. That said, after 3 months, I began to "concentrate" a little more on the schedules with the feedings, but still didn't keep exclusively to them: if my baby was hungry in between, I just breast-fed her a bit. Weaning your baby on to solid foods is one of the most important milestones during the early months of parenthood, and Gina's expert advice on weaning makes a baby's transition from milk to solid foods as straightforward as possible. Successful weaning establishes a pattern of healthy eating in babies, avoiding the pitfalls of fussy eaters restricted to a narrow diet.

After all, this book promises to teach parents tried and tested methods to get their baby to sleep through the night by the time they are 10 weeks old. With detailed, prescriptive information on everything parents need to know, this book includes chapters on: It seems that the benefits brought about by these books could be somewhat akin to a placebo - if reading this book gives you confidence or reassures you then it can't do any harm. I think that this approach probably isn't for me - if I had a better memory and could internalize the "golden rules" then perhaps I think there may be some sense in there. As it is, I expect the book would cause more stress in trying to remember things than any possible benefit. I'll probably read the excruciatingly titled "Baby Whisperer" next.

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By creating routines that match a growing baby's innate natural rhythms, Gina prevents the hunger, overtiredness and colic that can lead to excessive crying. Babies who are settled into Gina's gentle routines are happy and contented because their needs for food and sleep are appropriately met and they should sleep for their longest spell at night from an early age. My openness to Fordian thinking began a long time ago, when I was a student in New Zealand and my part time job was being a mother’s help to newborn babies in a posh part of town. Well, I think that The Contented Little Baby Book is really like a best practice manual, written by someone who has done the job of caring for many, many babies – and she is telling you what generally works. So impromptu lunches were out, as are late nights with a baby sleeping in a car seat under a restaurant table. I got to see what worked well, and what didn’t work well, in a real, tender, dirty-dishes-and-shouty-parents-and-wet-beds kind of proximity.